


it’s not living (if it’s not with you)

by pasteluthors



Category: Supergirl, supercorp - Fandom
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Comfort/Angst, F/F, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Heavy Angst, just. so much angst.
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-10
Updated: 2020-06-03
Packaged: 2021-03-01 03:54:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,717
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23088895
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pasteluthors/pseuds/pasteluthors
Summary: Supergirl disappears after the crisis. She’s presumed dead for 3 years until she’s mysteriously found unconscious. Lena has to deal with her many feelings.
Relationships: Alex Danvers/Kelly Olsen, Kara Danvers & Lena Luthor, Kara Danvers/Lena Luthor, Querl Dox/Nia Nal
Comments: 35
Kudos: 314





	1. Chapter 1

Three years. It’s been three years since the crisis. Three years since the multiverse merged into one. Three years since the last time anyone has seen Supergirl. 

Some speculated that she died during crisis as she was supposed to, as known by only the heroes, which is why it was the hardest on Barry than it was anyone else. He had lost his two best friends that day, and not a day goes by where he doesn’t feel guilty.

A little after a year of Kara’s death, Alex and Kelly officially started their life together. They had a small wedding with only family and close friends; even Lena came. This day marked the new friendship between her and Alex. About four months after the wedding, the Danvers-Olsen family welcomed a baby girl into their lives. The second day since crisis where Alex allowed herself to be happy. The first being her wedding, of course.

With a new soul in her life to take care of, Alex found a sense of belonging that she had lost along with her sister.

Emma Rose Danvers-Olsen was a beautiful fair-skinned baby girl, with bright blue eyes and light blonde hair; she resembled Kara so much which made the adoption all the more bitter-sweet. 

Thank god Kelly and Emma were there because Alex knew that she wouldn’t have gotten through that loss alone. Even with Eliza, J’onn, Brainy, and everyone else, no one hurt more from losing Kara than she did. Except maybe Lena.

Since the loss, Lena started working with the DEO to do something good and make a difference in people’s lives. She didn’t keep any secrets or have any kryptonian worldkillers locked in her basement unless the DEO knew about it. She owed it to Kara after everything they went through.

Out of respect to her once best friend as well as to the Danvers family (in secret, of course), LuthorCorp unveiled a new statue in the heart of National City honoring its fallen hero. The entire city fell eerily silent on that day, and even with Lena’s hatred towards the blonde hero, she was completely devastated that Kara was gone. 

Perhaps the only other person to know her true feelings was J’onn, who helped her through the tough time after she came to him for help. He was the only one who knew what went on inside her head, and the only one she trusted enough to help.

  
It’s now the three year anniversary of Supergirl’s memorial today. Every year since, the city gathered around the statue and spent nearly the entire day remembering their hero. There was never a dry eye within a twenty mile radius. Even Lex showed up each year, of course he was feigning his sadness. Not-so-deep-down, this is what he has always wanted ever since the first Kryptonian came into the media’s grasp, and Lena and the superfriends knew that. But no one had any evidence to even think about accusing him of Kara’s death.

No, Lex was thriving. LuthorCorp branched into LexCorp where he could run things separately from Lena, who had since taken over with the exception of her brother’s branch. This gave Lex the freedom to run as sketchy of a business as he wanted without messing things up for his family’s company. As an agreement to the separation, Lena made sure that none of his experiments gone wrong would come back to her or their company. Even though everyone believed Lex to be good on this Earth, Lena still knew of his true nature. She kept him at an arm’s length at all times.

The memorial day comes and goes. People seem to forget the very next day. Life goes back to normal. And for Lena, life has gotten back to as normal as possible.

That is, until Lex mysteriously dies in a terrible explosion at one of LexCorp’s solar power farms. The elder Luthor is pronounced dead on the scene. The city is devastated once again with the loss of a beloved icon.

Lena struggles a bit with the loss, but she’s more glad to have a world again without her sociopathic brother.

A couple days after the explosion, Lena receives a call in the middle of the night. She isn’t sleeping so she goes to answer whoever is calling her at such an ungodly hour. She doesn’t bother to look at the caller ID first.

“Hello?” She asks in a groggy, sleep-deprived voice, rubbing her tired eyes.

“She’s alive.” The voice replies breathlessly.

Lena perks up, “Alex? What are you talking about?  _ Lex _ is alive?”

“Kara. Kara is alive.”

Lena’s hand covers her mouth in disbelief at the words just uttered through the speaker. Surely this is some sort of twisted prank or messed up dream she’s having-

“Meet us at the DEO. Bring anything you can to help.” The trembling voice hangs up quickly just as people start yelling in the background. Giving Lena no more time for questions.

She grabs whatever gadgets she has in her penthouse, though most thinks that can help are back at the DEO.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lena and Alex have to cope with Kara's sudden return after so long.

Lena arrives at the DEO in no time, just as Brainy and J’onn are wheeling a gurney with a lifeless body into the med bay. Alex and Nia follow just behind. By the looks of it, it is only them in the building.

The brunette rushes behind the frantic group, but she doesn’t get a good shot of the gurney until they stop in one of the bays and disperse to grab whatever they need to revive the rag doll of a body. What is left of it, anyway.

When Lena sees what’s lying on the bed, she freezes amidst the chaos. While everyone else is grabbing this and that and hooking up various machines to the bloodied body, she’s just standing there in shock and disbelief at what is lying there in front of her.

It was Kara, but _barely_. Her face is caked in dried blood, mud, and a dried up dark blueliquid no one could make out. Her clothes look like something a prisoner would wear - a dark gray jumpsuit that was burned to pieces. The smell hits like a punch to the face. Comparable only to cooked steak, Lena does a once over only to find a large portion of Kara’s skin burned.

What isn’t burned is covered in deep cuts and lacerations, though the amount of mud on the kryptonian’s body keeps a lot of the deeper ones from bleeding out.

Lena is shoved aside as the heart rate monitor flatlines, and Alex rushes to shock the alien back to life. After two times, it works. But they aren’t out of the woods yet.

For once, Lena is too paralyzed with fear to do anything. She quietly watches in shock as the team works to clean out the blonde’s wounds and get her stabilized.

Kara’s alive, but still unconscious. Whatever had happened, drained all of the life left in her. Even the yellow sun lamps don’t help to heal her right away.

It takes hours. By the time Kara is all bandaged up as best as she can be, everyone is exhausted.

Alex glances at her watch to see that it’s nearing 4:00 AM. She finally breathes a sigh of relief once her sister is stable enough for them to have a break, and it’s only then that she notices a visibly trembling Lena standing in the corner. Eyes wide with fear.

She wipes a few beads of sweat off her forehead before mulling over to the Luthor. Unsure of what to say, Alex eventually breaks down in her friend’s arms and Lena - somehow - supports the weight despite feeling weak and numb.

Nia and Brainy comfort each other off to the side, and J’onn focuses on trying to tap in to Kara’s consciousness. But because it’s late and everyone is exhausted, he has to stop.

“How is this possible…?” Alex eventually whispers just loud enough for Lena to hear. All she can do in response is shake her head.

This gets her to thinking. Where _exactly_ did they find Kara?

Why is it that Lex suddenly dies in an explosion, and Kara is found just days later looking like she had just walked through fire and back?

What happened for the three years where everyone thought Supergirl was dead?

Everyone finds some sort of corner in the room to make their own as they get a couple hours of sleep before DEO employees arrive for work. Nia and J’onn head home, Brainy stays and drinks plenty of coffee in order to function as normal as one can with two whole hours of sleep.

No employee knows of the DEO’s newest guest, and Brainy plans on keeping things that way at Alex’s request until Kara is better. For now, the bay is locked down and no one is allowed in. No questions asked.

Lena manages to get about an hour and a half of broken sleep before she’s up for the day. She brings a chair next to the bed and silently watches over her friend, quickly noting just how peaceful Kara looks despite looking like a zombie. 

Kara’s condition stays the same, for the most part. The yellow sun lamps don’t appear to help like they normally would. Lena knows enough about Kryptonian physiology to know that. Alex was still sleeping, and she didn’t have the heart to wake her just yet. 

She tiptoes around the room as not to wake the oldest Danvers to the monitors and screens beeping slowly. She observes all of the information on the screens, and given what little knowledge she has, notices that something isn’t right.

Kara should be showing _some_ sign of improvement by now, but she isn’t even the least bit better than a few hours ago.

Something isn’t right.

But Lena decides not to panic just yet, After all, no one knows where Kara has been or what she has been through. This could just be her body in such a terrible state that it will take longer than usual to get her better.

She doesn’t know when, but sometime before Alex woke, Lena ended up in the chair again and drifted off back to sleep. She’s woken by a loud crashing noise from down the hall, only to notice that Alex isn’t in the room anymore. There’s no clock in the room, but she checks her phone to see that it’s a little after 9 AM.

Under the time, she sees a text from Alex saying that she had to run home to grab a few things.

Which meant that it’s just Lena and the woman who betrayed her all those years ago.

The slow, steady beeping from the monitor is just about the only sound that fills the room. Lena sits in bewilderment as she stares at Kara there on the tiny bed. A million questions going through her mind, she doesn’t know which one she wants answered first.

Taking a deep breath, she rises from her chair and paces slowly around the room. Fiddling with various gadgets to get out her nervous energy.

After a while, she ends up standing at the foot of the bed, eyes scanning her ex-friend once again.

Is she supposed to say something? Even if Kara can somehow hear her, what in the hell is Lena supposed to say? She thought she had worked past her feelings of anger a long time ago, but seeing Kara again is opening new wounds she thought had healed.

It’s not long before the first tear falls. Then another. And another. And before long, she’s full on sobbing.

“Why did you have to leave me? Do you know how hard it’s been without you here? Everyone thought you were dead...for three years!” The brunette turns her back to the bed and buries her face in her hands. Tears trickle down her arms.

Minutes later, the door opens and footsteps grow louder until two arms are hugging Lena close. She hears the familiar shushing trying to calm her down. Hears a heartbeat as her head rests on the woman’s head.

“It’s okay…” Alex whispers. She’s gotten used to moments like these ever since Kara’s funeral. She knows that her sister’s death affected Lena more than it did anyone else.

She knows all that Lena did to try and find Kara, and all of the heartbreak that came when they realized there was no getting her back.

What she doesn’t know is how Lena has thought about Kara every day since.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry this was kinda boring but I promise next chapter will make up for it :)


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kara wakes up, there's some tension.

The next week is hell. Lena and Alex sit in the DEO medbay all day, everyday for an entire week before they see any sort of change.

Throughout that time, they both realize that their superhero isn’t healing at an accelerated rate. Kara seems to be healing like any normal human would, which draws concern from the both of them.

J’onn and Brainy attempt to help figure things out, but they end up being too busy keeping the city calm to dedicate enough time to helping Kara.

It’s not until a week exactly after they get Kara that Alex thinks she has the answer they’ve been searching for.

The blue substance that was in the blonde seems to be some sort of version of kryptonite. The structure is similar to both green and red kryptonite when compared. This leads both Lena and Alex to worry, especially since they’ve never seen this version before.

Since this is something for Lena to do and to help out with, she heads to the DEO’s lab for the rest of the day to test this unknown substance.

She runs test after test for nearly three hours, until getting a text from Alex asking her to come back to the med bay.

She isn’t prepared for what she sees when she walks into the closed off room.

_Kara is awake._

Awake is a loose term because the Kryptonian isn’t even sitting up in the bed. Lena only knows that Kara is awake because Alex appears to be talking with her.

The conversation pauses when the Luthor steps in, and both pairs of Danvers eyes fall on her. She immediately meets Kara’s gaze and feels her heart skip a beat in her chest.

Lena grins when she sees those familiar blue hues once again. She tries to stop herself from acting on impulse, but she’s too overcome with joy not to run over and pull the injured blonde into the biggest hug one could give.

She’s met with grunts and whines when her arms lift and squeeze Kara’s shoulders, which quickly reminds her of the woman’s injuries and she gently helps her back down.

“Sorry…” she mutters, her joy fading as reality hits.

Kara has been gone for three years. _Three_ _years._ Three years, after they had the biggest argument of their entire friendship, and here Lena was acting as if none of the tension between them exists anymore.

She’s had time to move past it, but who knows what Kara has been up to? Has she been gone all this time because of their fight?

When Lena finally realizes that she’s been lost in thought for a couple minutes now, she sees that Kara is quietly looking over her. She hasn’t said anything. And Alex is sitting on the opposite side of the bed watching the angst between the two women.

Lena’s shoulders slump as she realizes that Kara probably doesn’t want to be in the same room as her, so she apologizes again and goes to exit the room.

The ache in her chest and burn in her throat grow with each step towards the door. She’s stopped by the faint whisper of her name, and turns her shoulders to see Kara still looking at her, though now she’s smiling. Weakly.

This gives her a small sliver of hope that maybe their past is truly in the past, and that they can work on rebuilding what they once had. Something that she’s dreamt about since first losing Kara.

Alex whispers something to her sister and leaves to give them time to talk. She pats Lena on the shoulder as they pass by, and shuts the door on her way out.

Lena isn’t sure what to do with herself, so she awkwardly tiptoes over to the chair set up beside the bed.

Kara puts her hand out and, without thinking, Lena takes in. Clasping the cold fingers between her hands. They exchange silent smiles for a while, taking in each other’s presence and everything that is different than when they last saw each other.

Kara notices the worry lines etched into Lena’s flawless skin. Lena notices just how tired Kara looks, and this makes those lines even more apparent.

After a while, the brunette finally speaks. Softly, as if afraid to talk.

“How are you feeling?”

“Like I got hit by a bus...and landed in a lake filled with kryptonite.” Kara attempts to laugh, but she wonders if the mention of the k-word brings back any memories for Lena. It sure as hell does for her.

Lena wants to ask the question that has been burning in her mind for the past three years, but she figures Kara doesn’t want to talk about it just minutes after waking up from at least a week-long coma.

Kara notices the heaviness in the other’s brow - a sign that Lena is thinking hard about something - and goes to answer the question not spoken.

She takes a sharp breath in and starts, “I know you want to know where I’ve been all this time…”

Lena silently looks up at her for a moment. “No, Kara. I mean, yes, I do want to know, but...not right now. I want you to rest and focus on getting better. Alex says you need your rest, and I don’t want to be the one to disobey her orders.” She attempts another laugh, but this one is weighed down with years of unanswered questions.

After that, the two of them sit in a more comfortable silence than before. They don’t need words in the moment, just each other’s presence.

Lena wakes up to the sound of metal clatter on a table in the room. She isn’t sure when she fell asleep, but she’s glad to wake up with Kara still in bed, safe and sound, and sound asleep for a few hours. The hand she was previously holding now drapes along the side of the bed, so she carefully picks it up and sets it over Kara’s stomach. She sits there in a peaceful silence for a while, before getting up to see what Alex is making noise for.

“While you two were in here, I went back down to the lab to finish that last test you were working on,” Alex whispers to the woman next to her as she fumbles with a vial of the blue liquid they’ve been working on.

“And?’ Lena crosses her arms over her chest, lip nervously tucking under her teeth as she watches the liquid flow back and forth in the small vile.

“It is some form of kryptonite. I think it’s synthetic, like with the red kryptonite, but it’s still pretty potent. Whoever made it knew what they were doing.”

“So what does this blue kryptonite do?”

“I’m not completely sure yet, but I think it’s responsible for why she isn’t improving like normal. By now, the yellow light should have done _something_. I thought it was something to do with the lamps, but now…” Alex holds up the vial, “I think it’s because of this.”

“It would make sense. One of the first tests I did had similar results when compared to green kryptonite. Maybe this one is a more concentrated form of the original?”

“Maybe. But since we don’t know what this does to Kryptonians yet, we need to keep it away from her.”  
  
“There’s still some in her blood. I took a sample earlier today, and the concentration was still way too high to be considered normal. I’ll take this back and see what else I can find,” Lena reaches for the bottle but Alex yanks it away from her before she can get it.

“You stay here. Make sure she doesn’t try to get up.” The redhead says firmly, and Lena nods in acceptance. Before Alex leaves, she stops and turns to the woman one final time. “And Lena, do _not_ tell her about this, got it?”

Lena nods again and Alex soon leaves to go back to the lab.

She sighs and rubs her forehead just when she hears a faint voice behind her, “Is there something wrong?”

Fuck. Kara heard probably all of what they just said.

“Uh…” the Luthor spins around to see Kara starting to sit up in the bed, to which she rushes over to stop her. “No, no. I was given strict orders not to let you move. Lay back down.”

Too weak to argue, Kara complies. Reluctantly. “Just like you were told not to tell me about a new form of kryptonite?”

Lena sees the worry in the blonde’s eyes, and that is exactly why she knows Alex told her not to tell.

“Did you hear all of that…?” Lena hopes the answer is no. For everyone’s sake.

“Yeah…”

_Shit._

“Please don’t worry about it right now, Kara. Alex and I are working on it and we’ll have some answers soon, okay?”

“But Alex said that it-”

“Kara, listen.” The brunette sits down in her chair next to the bed and sighs. “We don’t know exactly what this stuff is, but we will figure it out. I promise. Right now, you have to worry about getting better. You look like you went through hell and back when we found you.”

“That’s because I did…” Kara looks like she’s seen a ghost at the mention of that question from earlier. It certainly piques Lena’s interest, but she isn’t sure if now is the time for this talk. Especially not if things were as bad as the Kryptonian’s body made it out to be.

But the words leave her mouth before she can stop them. Curiosity and concern get the best of her.

“Kara...Where have you been for the past three years?” 

The blonde sighs, gaze shifting over to the wall opposite her. Her voice suddenly grows quiet and a bit shaky as she prepares to answer the question she knew Lena has been wanting answered for years now. She isn’t sure if she’s ready to relive the hell that happened, but she at least owes it to those close to her for them to know.

After a while of her debating telling the truth, she decides to do it. And she’s scared out of her mind for speaking the next word that leaves her lips.

“LexCorp.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hope you all enjoy :) thanks for reading! let me know what you think down below please


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TRIGGER WARNINGS FOR THIS CHAPTER: needles, brief torture
> 
> This chapter is solely a flashback chapter, meaning that if you need to skip because of the triggers mentioned above, you won't miss anything plotwise. It's more of a filler chapter but I wanted to write about this part before continuing with the story.
> 
> Also yes the blue liquid is blue kryptonite in case that isn't clear lol. Next chapter will go back to the present.

It’s hard to keep track of time without any sunlight around. Kara had lost count of the days already, but last she remembered, it had been two weeks locked in the tiny cell Lex had her in. That was at least four days ago.

The burning of kryptonite was something she was starting to get used to. It had been a steady pain from the moment she first woke up in that cell, the only times it’s shut off is when the red sun lamps are used to keep her body weakened during Lex’s “experiments.”

Kara didn’t think her body could scar, but without being able to heal quickly, the deep cuts inflicted on her skin leave a few noticeable scars across her body. Apparently, the crazed Luthor’s biggest obsessions with kryptonians is watching them bleed - something he only succeeded with Superman once or twice. Now, he has his very own kryptonian pet to do whatever he pleased.

Nothing was ever sexual. No, Lex often stated that he had surpassed the need for pointless human experiences such as sex. That was quite honestly the biggest relief for Kara. Just the thought of having sex with-

It makes her throw up a little bit in her mouth every time she even thinks about it.

No, everything Lex does to her is either to gather his own research on kryptonian physiology, or just to simply enjoy his new power dynamic with the strongest being on Earth. Ever since Superman’s arrival to this world, Lex had felt inferior to the alien. Now, he has the appalling alien’s cousin under his lock and key.

Nearly three weeks into whatever this could be called, Kara starts to lose her hope of being rescued. Everytime she fights and demands that J’onn or Nia or Brainy would find her, Lex reminds her that no one knows where she is and that the whole world thinks that she is dead. It only takes three weeks for the living symbol of hope to lose all sense of the word. Once Lex saw that light drain from her eyes, he knew he had won.

The days were starting to blur together. Between sleeping and passing out from pain or loss of blood, Kara never knows if it is morning, night, or somewhere in between. She only got one tiny meal a day, and some days she couldn’t physically bring herself to eat. Others, she would be out for so long that the already moldy food went bad. Lex made sure to personally serve her every meal as another way to get under her skin, as if keeping her locked up and torturing her every day wasn’t enough.

Yep. The torture isn’t just physical. Various objects and mysterious liquids are also tried to test Kara’s psychological strength, though she’s sure she isn’t the one there who needs testing.

Lucky for Kara, Lex wasn’t the only familiar face she got to see. He also has Eve Tessmacher as his own personal assistant. She assists, and sometimes performs on her own, with every torture session. Being a genius herself, she often comes up with new inventions and poisons to try out on Kara. There is one mixture that causes the most pain Kara had ever experienced. Upon injection, her entire body feels like it’s on fire. The walls of the small, dark room seem to be closing in on her to the point where she would have panic attacks from her claustrophobia. It makes her see and hear things that she knows aren’t real, but sure as hell feel real. 

Fortunately for Kara, Eve realizes that any further use of that drug would kill their kryptonian pet, so she formulated a milder version that feels kryptonite but with an added terrifying hallucination effect. It won’t kill Kara, but it would slowly drive her more and more mad.

Cold water startles Kara from her restless sleep and the nightmare she couldn’t wake up from. She rubs her eyes and groans in pain before lifting her head to see a wide-eyed, grinning-from-ear-to-ear Eve standing outside of her cell with a now empty bucket.

“Rise and shine, blondie. Mr. Luthor has a session booked for you in five minutes.” The eerily happy voice chimes through the slot in the cell door.

“What, he didn’t want to greet me himself this morning?” Kara attempts to sound snarky, though Eve can hear that the fight in the super’s voice is gone.

“Not today. He’s busy getting everything set up for today. It is a big day, after all!” The voice chimes back.

“You guys are finally going to kill me like you should have done a year ago?” Kara shakily pushes herself off of the cold, hard floor and into a sitting position on the ground. It’s all she can manage after the day before. Her leg had been forcefully snapped in half and wrapped back up so that she wouldn’t bleed out overnight.

“Oh, come on, Supergirl. You’re supposed to be the hopeful hero! Now bring some of that hope to today’s session because you’re going to need it.” Eve giggles and hops off humming. Her words leave Kara worried, but she gathers whatever strength she has to keep her fear from showing.

Minutes later, two large, muscular men dressed in all black throw the cell door open and pull Kara to her feet. She whines when she’s forced to put weight on her broken leg, though they manage to keep her from hitting the floor.

She’s dragged down the same corridors that have been her home for the last few months. It’s dark and damp, and the smells of her own filth litter the hallways. She hasn’t had a proper shower since arrival, only a forceful blast of water every few days to wash off any dirt, blood, and whatever else had oozed out of her wounds.

They bring her into the familiar room where all of her “sessions” have been held. She knows the drill. They throw her onto the metal slab, tie her ankles, wrists, neck, and head down, and leave her in the dank room until Eve and Lex arrive. Today, however, Lex is already gracing Kara with his presence when she arrives.

“Ah, good morning my little puppy. How are we feeling today?” He asks with a happy tone in his voice after looking over his shoulder to see Kara and the two men.

“Couldn’t be better. The fever really helped me to lose extra sleep last night” Kara says with a grunt just as one of the men fastens the strap around her neck. As usual, it’s only tight enough to let her breathe.

“Good, I’m glad to hear that. As Ms. Tessmacher already informed you, today is a very special day,” He finally turns after adjusting a few tools on the metal counter, and greets Kara with a welcoming smile.

“Yeah, she said you guys are finally letting me go and turning yourself in to the police.”

Lex chuckles, amused, and creeps over next to the metal bed. “Oh, my dear sweet pet. You are never going to see the light of day again.” He gently caresses Kara’s head, ignoring her struggle to get away from his touch.

There’s a brief moment of them locking eyes. Lex sees the exhaustion in Kara, she sees the vile eagerness in his.

Then he spins away to straighten the tools again.

“No, today is a big day because Ms. Tessmacher has finished something wonderful. Something she has been working on for months now. Something,” he pauses and turns again, “that might just change the way the world sees the supers.”

Kara says nothing, but inside, her mind is going a mile a minute to try and figure out this new invention - whatever it is - and how it could ‘change the way the world sees the Supers.’

“Now, I know you’re asking yourself: “What in the world could his brilliant mind be talking about? But do not worry. You shall soon find out.”

A few minutes later, Eve arrives holding a suspicious syringe filled with some sort of blue liquid that Kara couldn’t quite make out, though she was certain that it was about to be injected into her skin. Lex notes the blonde’s curiosity and chuckles amusedly.

“Don’t worry, rat. You’ll soon learn what this new concoction does.”

Lex and Eve turn to a private conversation just as one of the large guards from earlier appears in Kara’s line of sight and instantly, she knows what is about to happen.

The powerful shock of electricity tenses all of her muscles at once, causing her to fight against the tight restraints until the current stops. Even when it does, she can’t hear or barely see anything that’s around her. She’s used to the pain, but that doesn’t mean it gets any easier.

The nameless man sends another strong shock through her body just for fun, normally they only started off with one shock before the “experiment” began. 

Just as Kara is coming to after blacking out for a second or two, she sees Eve approach her bed with the syringe in hand, preparing to inject it into her arm. With skills of a trained professional, Eve successfully pokes the large needle into Kara’s vein on the first try. Kara barely feels the prick as she’s too focused on trying to come back to. However, within a minute or so of Lex and Eve watching her intently, she suddenly feels weaker than she’s ever felt before. Like every ounce of strength she once had is now gone; the life sucked out of her.

She can’t see for herself, but the blue liquid shines underneath her skin as it flows through her veins and weakens her more and more by the second. Once the entire syringe is emptied into her bloodstream, Kara realizes that something is wrong.

She has no time to think before Lex is shouting - likely to guards outside of the room but Kara doesn’t know who exactly - to turn off the red sun lamps. This is the first sentence that Kara can make out after the shocks, and as much as she wants to have hope that she will get some strength back, she knows deep down that it won’t.

The lights in the dark room flicker as the red sum lamps turn off, and for a moment, Lex and Eve hold their breath. They have yet to know the outcome of their new potion, which means they have no idea if Kara is about to burst out the door at superspeed or not.

The first test comes after another minute or so when Lex takes a scalpel and drags it carelessly down Kara’s leg. He presses deep to see if the blue liquid had worked, and, to his delight, dark red blood spills out quickly from the cut as Kara whimpers in pain. He only stops once his theory is proven true, at which point Eve approaches to loosely wrap Kara’s leg to keep from getting blood everywhere.

“Well done Ms. Tessmacher. It looks like we are about to save a lot on electricity,” Kara hears the bald psychopath’s voice echo in the room but she has no energy to even think about the meaning of his words before her eyes roll back and she blacks out.


End file.
